France

The “yellow vest” movement in France has involved hundreds of thousands of people in demonstrations, blockades of roundabouts, main roads and toll booths all around the country, in big cities and in the countryside. Begun in mid-November, it has not even stopped during the festive season, and it’s not finished yet

For more than a month now, since 17 November, France has seen an apparently unstoppable revolt from below. A massive tide of very visible protest has swept the country, initially against a rise in the tax on diesel, but rapidly becoming a revolt of the oppressed against 'the president of the rich', Emmanuel Macron.

After three weeks of increasingly angry mass protests, French President Emmanuel Macron suspended the massively contested tax on diesel. It remains to be seen whether this will defuse the mass movement calling for his government to resign.

Over the last weeks, France has witnessed widespread protest against neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron and his government. Close to 500,000 people blockaded roads and roundabouts on Saturday 17 November.

Ian Pattison, from The Socialist, weekly paper of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales)

By Friday 24 May 1968, ten million workers were on strike. The greatest general strike in history. On the same day, the president of France, General Charles de Gaulle, tried to address the nation. Nobody saw it. It was a victim of the TV workers' strike.

A second labour law to facilitate redundancies and short term contracts, an end to railway workers’ protected status and the national public railway enterprise, selection for university entrance, huge cuts in several public services, social benefits cuts, a new tax on pensioners. It’s a flood of attacks on the working class, on pensioners...

Since the election of Emmanuel Macron, the president of the rich, and after the onslaught of the government against all sectors in society especially the public services - the railways (the SNCF), pensioners, young people, unemployed - we were expecting the day of action on 22 March to go well.

Amid the trumpeting about a massive vote for the party of the new President, Emmanuel Macron, in the first round of France’s parliamentary election last Sunday (11th June), a deep malaise pervades in French society. It is indicated by a record number of voters staying away from the polling booths; less than half of the electorate turned...